


Perfection

by ilvos01



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: One Shot, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 13:42:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7174115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilvos01/pseuds/ilvos01
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small dialogue, late at night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfection

_Zeno once described a paradox to Diogenes. "If you come half as close to this barrel as you are now," he said, "and then half as close again, you could repeat this action to infinity and never draw any closer. One cannot reach infinity. Therefore, no motion can exist."_

_Diogenes responded by standing up and walking._

* * * 

"Is there perfection in the world?" She asked.

Data started, for a moment. He was not prepared for this question. "I'm sorry, Sarah, but I must ask you to clarify what you mean."

Sarah sighed, rubbing her fingers along the rim of her glass of water. They were in Data's cabin–it was late at night. When most of the crew were fast asleep, she was not, and had sought company in the android, who himself did not need sleep. On a nearby chair, Spot slept soundly, curled into a fluffy ball. "Perfection," she replied. "Something unchanging, incorruptible. Something that may, as odd as it seems, connect our world to that of perfect Platonic forms."

Data thought for a moment. He was tempted to rub his chin, as he had often seen others do when pondering a peculiar subject. However, this urge was simply aesthetic, and he decided, ingenuine. He simply sat still, considering her words. "I would think not," was his eventual answer. "Physicists often describe a perfect frictionless vacuum, to work conceptually with a pure idea. But it is only rhetorical–imperfection is one of the inescapable clauses of reality. If the world contained perfection, there would be capacitors bearing no resistance. Perpetual motion would be possible."

Smiling, Sarah set her glass down upon the table that sat between them. "One could escape entropy?"

"Yes."

"These are all examples I have considered before, Data," she replied. "But it is still something that plagues me. How can anything be real without inescapable absolutes? There must be something inescapable. Something final."

Data sat still for a moment, staring into Sarah's eyes. Finally, he spoke again. "I would give you an answer. But first, I must ask–is there anything religious about your inquiry? I have no wish to disrespect you."

She laughed. "The question of perfection will always be entangled with religion, Data. But no, I have no investment in this beyond the conceptual. Well-" Sarah sighed, picking up her water again and swirling it in its crystal container. "Maybe I do. But I would be remiss to hold investment in an incorrect answer. I have no wish for you to censor yourself."

Data nodded. "Very well." He stood up from his chair, and walked to the replicator, sunken in to the far wall. Instead of speaking to it, he used the touchscreen display upon its side, fingers moving fast enough to blur in Sarah's vision. "Sarah," he said, after a moment, "would you come over here please?"

Curious, she stood, and joined Data by the replicator. He had stopped typing, and had his finger holding over the engaging button, that would begin the small machine to its action. "Pay close attention," the android said.

He pushed the button. Swirling light filled the replicator's sunken compartment, and soon there were two objects there–a small metal weight, resembling a tapered cone. And a digital display, showing many digits. It read "100.0", followed by many zeroes, followed by a percentage sign. 

Less than a second later, the display read "99.9", followed by many nines. The rightmost digit decreased rapidly, and soon the second-to-last digit decreased to an eight. The percentage shown decreased in this manner consistently, though Sarah could easily tell by the speed of change it would not even halfway approach one percent decrease for many thousands of years, if not longer. "What is this?" she asked.

Data gently grabbed the metal weight by its tapered top, holding it out to Sarah. She extended a hand, and Data gently placed it there. "This," he replied, "is a perfect gram. Or it was, until very soon after it was created. This display–" he gestured to the digital numbers, still steadily decreasing, "shows what percentage of a gram this weight actually is, currently. Upon its creation, it weighed exactly what a gram should be, according to the conceptual mathematical standard. But as soon as it was created, the atoms within it interacted with the atoms outside of it."

Sarah gently rubbed her thumb over the smooth chrome surface of the weight, looking at her distorted reflection there. 

"If perfection can occur, it is only for an instant."

They stood in silence for many moments, Sarah looking on at the weight, and Data staring solemnly at her. He wondered at the things human beings give importance to. Why they perhaps look to things within the world for understanding within themselves. Then again, the android himself was not innocent of such actions. He absentmindedly stroked Spot's fur, and the cat purred.

Setting down the weight, Sarah spoke. "My interest in conceptual perfection began very young. I would ask my father about it. The poor man, he didn't know what to say, but did his best to understand what I was asking for. We were on his fishing boat when he finally gave me his answer, nearly a full year after I first asked.

"He said that he didn't know what I had asked, but once he understood, he knew exactly what I meant, and had often wondered at it before. He said, that in all his days of braving the ocean and working, his body tiring and muscles aching, he would sometimes find solace in the type of perfection I sought. He said, he would look out at the horizon, of the ocean. The line between the deep blue of the water and the hazy, pale blueness of the sky was a perfect flatness, like the seam between heaven and earth. Flawless and unreachable as God." She looked Data in the eye.

Data looked back, unblinking. He often blinked, to seem less unnerving to his crewmates. Right now, however, he knew he should not. "Given the immensity of curvature of an Earth-sized body, based on a man-sized observer upon its surface, the horizon would appear to be a straight line." He shrugged. "This could be interpreted as persistent corporeal perfection."

Sarah smiled; a relieved smile that was not exuberant yet nonetheless came bursting upon her face. "So you were wrong, then?" 

"In a manner of speaking. Your father was right to say that it was unreachable–this flatness is only apparent, from the observer's standpoint. But perhaps that is enough." Data began to speak, then paused. The face of Tasha Yar appeared in his mind, smiling. He never knew what she saw in him.

Finally, he spoke. "Perhaps perfection is subjective."

**Author's Note:**

> I've been reading Borges and it shows.


End file.
